Another primate death prompts call for sanctions against UL by animal
rights group

From TheAdvertiser.com, Friday, August 30, 2013

University says animal died in 'freak accident'

Another primate has died at the University of Louisiana at
Lafayette’s research center in New Iberia, prompting an animal rights
group to call on the federal government to lodge penalties of up to
$30,000 against the university.

The death of the rhesus macaque on July 2 was the fourth death of a
primate at the New Iberia Research Center in the past two years. Three
rhesus macaques died in May 2011 after becoming trapped in a chute that
connected two outdoor cages.

The university paid a $38,571 penalty to the U.S. Department of
Agriculture earlier this year over the deaths of the three primates and
another unrelated incident at the research center.

The latest death was one of three incidents this year cited in a
report by the USDA after a routine inspection on Aug. 6-7. The report
says the female rhesus macaque died after getting her hand trapped in
the cage between a metal conduit and what is described in the report as
the “corn crib portion” of the enclosure. The other incidents cited
involved the escape on Jan. 19 of five capuchin monkeys, who removed a
substandard latch clip from their enclosure door, and the injury of
another rhesus macaque, who broke her own arm after it became trapped in
the enclosure on March 29.

The incidents brought demands from the nonprofit Stop Animal
Exploitation Now organization that the USDA assess the maximum penalty
of $10,000 per incident against UL.

“The demonstrates that the University of Louisiana, Lafayette
continues to have inadequate observation of animals,” according to a
letter from SAEN Executive Director Michael A. Budkie to Dr. Robert
Gibbens, director of the USDA’s Western Region in Fort Collins, Colo.
“This situation has not been remedied since the unnecessary deaths of 3
primates in 2011. Despite the fact that this lab was fined, it is quite
apparent that no meaningful changes have been made.”

The university responded with a written statement late Thursday
afternoon that described the incident as “freak accident” and noted that
the five monkeys that escaped were able to go no farther than the room
in which their enclosures were housed.

The incidents were self-reported to the government, and corrections
were made before the inspection was conducted in August. The USDA report
notes that corrective measures had been made in all three incidents.

“Everything was corrected immediately,” said Dr. Joe Simmons,
director of the New Iberia center, according to the UL statement.

Simmons said the death was an “unusual incident that has occurred
only once in 30 years,” according to the statement. The actual cause of
death of the monkey was not specified in either the USDA report or the
UL statement.